the union convenor. In just about every respect, Johnstone, who had previously worked in the Clyde shipyards, fitted the bill of the west of Scotland working-class male. A big, gruff, garrulous man, Johnstone’s accent leaves absolutely no doubt in your mind as to where he is from. He speaks as if he has nails in his mouth. He is a stereotypical Glaswegian, too, in being a good talker and a natural story teller. Crucially for Millar, Johnstone was also a cyclist, and as the convenor at Weir’s his role was to represent and fight for the interests of the workers. He admits that, because of their shared interest in cycling, he was perhaps more sympathetic to Millar’s quirks and foibles than he might otherwise have been – though only to a point. ‘I never really got to know him because he wasn’t a great communicator,’ he says. ‘Why would I bother talking to him? I had better things to do! I had everyone’s problems to deal with at that time.’
In the early months of 1978 Millar approached Johnstone with a request: he wanted time off for training. Which, in its own way, was almost as audacious as his stated ambition to win the British championship. ‘Nobody ever had time off at Weir’s for anything,’ states Johnstone, though he went nevertheless to try to negotiate some time off for Millar and Whitehall, both of whom were targeting selection for the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada. ‘I got them two and a half days a week,’ says Johnstone, a note of triumph still detectable. ‘Davie was tickled to death with that, but Robert came back and said he wasnae happy at all. I said, “Well, Robert, I cannae dae any better than that.” And he said, “Well, I think I’m gonnae have to leave.” I advised him against it. His apprenticeship finished in August – he only had aboot three months left.’
Arthur Campbell, by now taking an increasing interest in Millar, and beginning to play the role of mentor, also advised him against leaving. ‘Robert didn’t know it, but Peter Johnstone was keeping an eye on him on my behalf,’ he reveals. ‘When he told me he was thinking about leaving I told him to do his time and get his apprenticeship. Get your papers, I told him, and then you can go to France and try to be a cyclist. I told him to speak to his parents, at least, but he shook his head and said, “It’s my decision.”’
Ian Thomson, the Scotland team manager, remembers when Millar packed in his apprenticeship at Weir’s. ‘We were on a Sunday training run in early April and he was talking to me about it. I said, “You’ve not got long to go, do your time, make the effort, then you’ve got something behind you and you can do what you want.” And then he went in the next day and resigned. I thought, “So much for my powers of persuasion …”’
It is revealing to note that the language of working in the factory so closely resembles that of being in prison. But Millar didn’t care much for doing his time, or finishing his sentence, which was how he probably regarded the apprenticeship. He might even have derived some satisfaction from completing two years, eight months of a three-year apprenticeship – another gesture ‘as eloquent as a thumbed nose’. But a deeper reason was surely his unhappiness at Weir’s, and, more than that, the thought that working there might inhibit his cycling ambitions over a crucial period, starting with the Milk Race, continuing with the British championship and the Commonwealth Games, and concluding, if he could gain selection to the British team, with the world championship in West Germany. He knew that success in any of these events could be his passport to Europe, and that Europe, in turn, could be his passport to a way of living, and a way of earning a living, infinitely preferable to working in a factory.
In the background, partly offering a counter-voice to the pleas of caution from Campbell, Johnstone and Thomson, was the calm reassurance of Billy Bilsland. He was the one man, after all, who had done what Millar wanted to do: he had ridden as a professional on the continent. Wittingly or not, Bilsland provided tangible evidence that it could be done. ‘Back then there was a mentality that you needed a trade,’ says Bilsland. ‘I said to him, “You’ll be out of cycling a lot longer than you’re in it, so you have to think of the future. But at the same time, it’s a short time in your life and you’ve got to make the most of it.”’
Peter Johnstone certainly recognized that Millar was unhappy at Weir’s. ‘You could tell his heart wasn’t in it, and the better he got at cycling, you could see the direction he was going in. It was obvious to me, anyway. The last job Robert had was working in the test department with me. It was all big water pipes and steam pipes, and Robert would go in there and hide. There was plenty of heat in there so it was a good place for a wee kip.’ Lowering his voice to a whisper, he adds, ‘I know because I sometimes did it myself. You’d be “between jobs”, you know? But nobody would find Robert in there unless they went looking.’
‘But would they not go looking?’ I ask Johnstone. ‘Wasn’t Millar supposed to be doing something?’
‘Ach no,’ Johnstone replies with a laugh. ‘Robert widnae be missed.’
So Millar left Weir’s, and he wasn’t missed.
Johnstone, meanwhile, was left wondering if his fellow apprentice David Whitehall, whom he considered to be just as talented as Millar, might be tempted to follow the same path. ‘I asked wee Davie, was he not thinking about doing it,’ says Johnstone. ‘But Davie said, “I don’t think I’m good enough.” And wee Davie was the man, a multi-Scottish champion. Strange that Millar thought he was good enough.’
The Milk Race opened with a two-mile time trial in Brighton, before winding up the country in one-hundred-mile stages taking the riders into Wales, on to Birmingham and into Yorkshire before eventually finishing, two weeks later, in Blackpool. Bobby Melrose crashed out on stage 4, between Aberystwyth and Great Malvern, and on the same stage Robert Millar made his first appearance at the head of the race, making it into a short-lived four-man escape with an Irishman, a Swede and a Pole.
It was on the eve of the race’s rest day that the Scottish team, which had been performing respectably if not spectacularly, made the headlines. ‘Things had been going great,’ insists Dorward, his face falling and his head shaking slowly as he relates the story. ‘The team had great spirit, always laughing. But there was a stage that finished in Scarborough, with a rest day the next day, and the boys were wanting to go out on the town. We had a wee chat and I told them that if they went out they had to be back by eleven. I could see their faces light up – they were expecting me to say nine. Three in the morning, that’s when they came in. Robert Millar, by the way, was the first back – just before eleven. Jamie [McGahan] was close behind him. But the others I had to send home, and for all the wrong reasons I became a celebrity on the race.’ Millar and McGahan were thus the only Scots to finish the Milk Race, with Millar placing a fine twenty-first overall. It was, reckons the unfortunate Melrose, the making of both riders. ‘They came back from the Milk Race totally different riders,’ he says. Melrose still wonders whether he might have achieved his ambition of turning professional had it not been for the crash on stage 4. ‘It was a bit of a sickener for me.’
After the decidedly shaky start to their manager–rider relationship, Dorward could only admire Millar’s approach to and aptitude for stage racing. He seemed to have an uncanny knack of doing the right thing. ‘It’s something I always say to riders,’ says Dorward, ‘that in a stage race, when you cross that line, you head straight for your digs. No matter what anyone says, you head straight for your bed, and get in. But I didn’t need to tell Robert. When I got to the hotels after stages on that Milk Race there’d always be one key missing – Robert’s. He was always first to the hotel. He was completely focused on rest and recovery.’
Millar’s meticulous attention to detail was also apparent in his habit of surreptitiously removing ashtrays from the hotel bars – not for a sly cigarette, but to prop up the legs at the foot of his bed. Arthur Campbell had observed the top cyclists doing this on the Peace Race, the equivalent of the Tour de France for amateurs, and had recounted the story to the young Millar. The theory was that the blood would flow from the legs towards the heart, to be recycled and replenished. Millar took
